


me and my one man army

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: American Civil War, Character Death, Drabble, M/M, civilwarstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Nice to meet you,” he says pleasantly, like the two of you aren’t a couple of nameless soldiers slowly dying with death already all around. “My name’s John.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	me and my one man army

You never meant to fight in a war, but then your pop died and your older brother never came back either and you didn’t have much of a choice, really. Sleeping on the ground with nothing but a bedroll, eating nothing but hardtack, and dealing with the rest of your company had been the least of your worries—but you hadn’t known that, when you’d first started out.

Then there had been the battles.

You’d survived only one, but it felt like a hundred. You didn’t think then that anyone should have to deal with seeing that much death in one lifetime, and you sure as hell don’t think so now. You hope that later they’ll come up with names for the battles, glorify them, so that they don’t seem so bad.

You’d survived only one. Maybe you’d survive two, but you aren’t so sure. One battle seems like a hell of a pitiful number; you know people who’d survived none, though, so you guess you have a reason to be grateful.

Either way, if you die here, it ain’t gonna be quick.

 _Just keep your eyes open_ , you order yourself, _just keep your eyes open until someone in your company comes to find you_. It doesn’t matter that they left with everyone else; someone has to come back. _Someone._

 __Still, it’s hard work ignoring the niggling little voice that tells you you’re wrong. You decide that you’re better off just not thinking about it. Not wanting to risk moving your legs, you use a great deal of energy rolling over onto your back so that you’re at least facing the sky. It’s not grey, like you thought it might be. Bright, cheery, blue. You suppose that your death doesn’t matter all that much. Still, the sky’s a fair pretty thing to look at, pretty as any belle back home; you find yourself saying so out loud.

“I think so, too,” whispers a voice near to where you’re lying on the ground.

Your head lolls to the side lazily as you attempt to look at the speaker, but you might as well be still looking at the sky, because the man stretched out maybe a foot away has the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen. Judging from his uniform, it turns out that one of the Union soldiers collapsed near you isn’t dead yet. The shaky smile he offers you is further ruined by the trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, and the dirt caked in his unruly black hair.

“Nice to meet you,” he says pleasantly, like the two of you aren’t a couple of nameless soldiers slowly dying with death already all around. “My name’s John.”

“Wish I could say the same,” you reply, because your loyalty doesn’t want you to lie here bleeding and exchanging small talk with a _Yankee._ You hesitate before grudgingly offering your name, “David,” because it’s not as if he can do anything about it.

 __He doesn’t seems offended though, just breathes a little sigh, and you realize that you’re starting to feel lightheaded and the pain is starting to numb. There’s a soft murmuring coming from John, and you think drowsily that he has a nice voice—you’d have liked to sit and listen to it for longer, but you can’t seem to focus on much of what he’s saying. You catch snippets of words like ‘Jade’, and ‘promised you’ and ‘I’m sorry’, and you think you might reply to the last with an instinctive ‘it’s okay’, but it probably comes out odd.

After a while he falls silent and you’re quiet too and it’s all too stony, like death is looming at your door, and it’s too soon for that, so you try humming a tune one of your company taught you, but you can’t seem to find the energy. John recognizes your effort and starts up with his own humming—and even if it’s probably some Northern song about emancipation it sure is comforting to listen to right now.

You think maybe you’d have liked to ask John what the words were, if things had been different.

But after a while, even his humming stops, leaving the two of you in silence that doesn’t seem any less threatening. ”I think wars are nonsense,” he sighs sleepily, and his breathing is slowing to peaceful, shallow rise-and-falls.

 _Keep them open._

“Not all of them,” you say.

And you close your eyes either way.


End file.
